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The Commemorative Quarter for Virginia





Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Bridgewater (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Bridgewater. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Bridgewater is located in Rockingham County.

To see how the shape of Virginia's counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Rockingham County: Albemarle, Augusta, Greene, Page, Shenandoah, Hardy (WV) & Pendleton (WV).

Below are the counties that are near Bridgewater. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Bridgewater:

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Bridgewater, see our County-by-County Page for Bridgewater.

Cemeteries Near Bridgewater ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Bridgewater.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Bridgewater covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Bridgewater, with the one closest to Bridgewater listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<4>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Bridgewater had a population of 652 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Bridgewater had a population of 6,162 people.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Bridgewater, with the one closest to Bridgewater listed first.

  • Mount Crawford
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Dayton
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Rushville
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Rushville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rushville
    • Rushville is located in Rockingham County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Rushville
    • From Bridgewater to Rushville
  • North River
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Spring Creek
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Pleasant Valley
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Pleasant Valley have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pleasant Valley
    • Pleasant Valley is located in Rockingham County
  • Ottobine
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Hinton
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Stonewall
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Stonewall have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stonewall
    • Stonewall is located in Augusta County
  • Friedens
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Friedens have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Friedens
    • Friedens is located in Rockingham County
  • Peach Grove ‑ Historic
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Peach Grove have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Peach Grove
    • Peach Grove is located in Rockingham County
  • Dale Enterprise
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Dale Enterprise have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dale Enterprise
    • Dale Enterprise is located in Rockingham County
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Bridgewater. See our List of 1890's Communities around Bridgewater.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Bridgewater ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 84 newspapers that have been published in the area around Bridgewater.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Bridgewater. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Bridgewater and those printed in the larger area surrounding Bridgewater.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 19 miles [30.6 km]<5> of Bridgewater.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These professional and volunteer websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Bridgewater:

The official website for Bridgewater: www.town.bridgewater.va.us/

The official website for Rockingham County: www.co.rockingham.va.us/

The official website for State of Virginia: https://www.virginia.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<3>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<4>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Bridgewater, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<5>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Bridgewater) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Bridgewater. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 38.3857, Longitude: -78.9719    









 

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This page was last modified/updated: 31 Mar 2025